“What makes you think we will still be at sea by then?” Hawkwood asked lightly.
“We have been blown far off our course. Any fool can see that. Can you even tell us where we are, Captain? Could any man? It could be we will be sailing until our provisions run out.” His hand tightened further on the symbol at his breast until Hawkwood fancied he could hear the fine gold creak. “And we will thirst or starve to death, becoming a floating graveyard upon this accursed sea. I tell you, Captain, it is rank impiety to suppose that any man can cross the Western Ocean. It is a border of the world set there by the hand of God, and no man may breach it.”
Here he looked away, and Hawkwood could have sworn that the priest knew these words were false.
“I cannot authorize the abandonment of the voyage,” Hawkwood said in measured tones, hiding the exasperation he felt. “For it is not I who bears the ultimate responsibility. While the ship floats and is in a condition to carry on, the broader decisions are left to Lord Murad. I can only override him if I feel that my technical knowledge renders my decisions more valid than his. The ship
Let Murad muzzle this priest, not I, he was thinking. The pious dastard thinks of me as common scum, to obey the orders of the Church nobility without question. Well, I will not disabuse him of that notion. Let him go to Murad for his refusal. He may take it more easily from one of his station.
“I see,” the priest said, bowing his head so that Hawkwood might not see his eyes.
They could hear the shouts of the sailors out on deck, the creak of rope and squeak of pulleys. The crew must have been hauling the new topmast out of the hold. Hawkwood chafed to be away, but the Inceptine continued to sit with his head bowed.
“Father—” Hawkwood began.
“I tell you there is a curse on this ship and those aboard her!” the priest blurted out. “We will leave our bones upon her decks ere we ever sight any mythical Western Continent!”
“Calm down, man! Making wild claims like these will help no one. Do you want to panic the passengers?”
“The passengers!” Ortelius spat. “Dweomer-folk! The world would be better rid of them. Do they even know where they are headed? They are like cattle being driven to the slaughter!”
With that he leapt up off his stool and, throwing open the cabin door, launched out into the companionway. He barked his shin on the storm sill and went sprawling, then gathered himself up and billowed off, out to the glaring brightness of the deck. Hawkwood stared after his black flapping form in wonder and disquiet. He had the strangest idea that the Inceptine knew more of the ship’s destination than he did himself.
“The old Raven is going mad,” he said, slamming the bulkhead door and laughing a little uneasily.
Another knock at the just-closed door, but before Hawkwood could say anything it had opened and Murad was standing there.
“I heard,” the nobleman said.
“Thin bulkheads. There are few secrets on board ship,” Hawkwood said, annoyed.
“Just as well. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say.” Murad perched on the edge of Hawkwood’s desk nonchalantly. He had taken off his leathers and was in a loose linen shirt and breeches. A scabbarded poniard hung from his belt.
“Do you believe him?” Murad asked.
“No. Seamen may be superstitious, but they are not fools.”
“Will we be at sea through the winter then, trying to regain our course?”
“Not necessarily,” Hawkwood admitted. Murad looked terrible. They all did in the aftermath of the storm. Most of the crew were like badly animated zombies, but Murad was as lean as a well-gnawed bone and there were muddy puddles under his eyes, red lines breaking across his corneas. He was like a man who had forgotten how to sleep.
“There is a weather-worker on board. I suppose you’ve heard.”
“The soldiers speak of it.”
“Well, we have two choices. Either we whistle for a wind and then try beating north-west, which according to Tyrenius’ rutter—or what you have allowed me to read of it—would be right into the teeth of the prevailing north-westerlies.”
“What would that mean?” Murad snapped.
“It would mean extra months at sea. Half-rations, the loss of your remaining horses. Probably the deaths of the weakest passengers.”
“And the other alternative?”
“We ask the weather-worker to utilize his skills.”
“His sorcery,” Murad sneered.
“Whatever. And he blows us back on course as easy as you please.”
“Have you sailed with a weather-worker before, Hawkwood?”
“Only once, in the Levangore. The Merduks employ them in their galley squadrons to bring down calms when they are attacking sailing ships. The one I met was chief pilot in the port of Alcaras in Calmar. Their magic works, Murad.”
“Their magic, yes.” The nobleman seemed deep in thought. “Do you realize that Ortelius is a spy, sent to observe the voyage for his master the Prelate of Hebrion?”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“It will be bad enough that our crew are half-Merduk and our passengers a parcel of sorcerers. Now we are to use sorcery to propel the very ship itself.”
“Surely the voyage comes under the King’s protection. The Prelate would not dare—”
“It is the colony I am thinking of. It is a new Hebrian province we will be seeking to establish in the west, Hawkwood, but if the Prelate of Hebrion sets his face against it, it may become simply a place of exile for undesirables.”
Hawkwood laughed at that. “I can see it now: Murad, lord of witches and thieves.”
“And Hawkwood, admiral of prison hulks,” Murad countered.
They glared at one another, tension sizzling in the air between them.
“It is your decision to make,” Hawkwood said stiffly at last. “But as master of the
“I will think on it a while,” Murad told him, and moved towards the door.
“One more thing,” Hawkwood said, feeling reckless.
“Yes?”
“That fellow Bardolin. He asked me to have a word with you about the girl Griella.”
Murad spun on his heel. “What about her?”
“I suppose he wants you to leave her alone. Perhaps she does not relish your attentions, my lord.”
Before Hawkwood could even flinch, Murad’s poniard was naked and shining at his throat.
“My affairs of the heart are not a basis for discussion, Captain, at any time.”
Hawkwood’s eyes were aflame. “The passengers are my responsibility, along with the running of the ship.”
“What’s the matter, Captain? Are you jealous? Have you lost your taste for boys, perhaps?”
The poniard broke the skin.
“I do not hold with rape, Murad,” Hawkwood said steadily. “Bardolin is rumoured to be a mage, not a man to cross lightly.”
“Neither am I, Captain.” The blade left Hawkwood’s throat, was scabbarded again. “Find this weather- worker, and let him ply his trade,” Murad said casually. “We can’t let a man like our good priest end up drinking his own piss.”
“What will you tell him?”
“Nothing. He is worn-looking, don’t you think? Maybe he has a streak of madness in him induced by the strain of the past days. It would be a shame were something to happen to him ere we sight land.”
Hawkwood said nothing, but rubbed his throat where the poniard tip had pricked it.
